Gilbert House Fellowship

THE THREE most important things when considering real estate are location, location, and location. This week, we discuss the request of the tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh to remain east of the Jordan in Gilead and Bashan. Then we recount the stations of the Exodus and explain why certain locations, especially Oboth and Iye-Abarim, were so important. Finally, we run down a...

GOD ORDERED the Israelites to take revenge on the people of Midian. This is hard to understand, since Moses was married to a Midianite woman—until you consider the context of the spiritual war being waged around the Israelites. We take a brief look at the Midianites and their identification by scholars with the Shasu, a nomadic people known from Egyptian texts. The Shasu were formerly known, in th...

THE NUMBER of bulls sacrificed during the annual Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) is unparalleled in any other feast given to Moses by God. This week, we discuss the religious calendar the Israelites were to follow when they entered the promised land, and why the sacrifice of 70 bulls over the seven days of Sukkot was so significant. It wasn’t about slaughtering a lot of beef; it was a message direct...

BALAAM WAS unable to curse Israel, but the people were lured into worshiping a god called Baal-Peor—with disastrous consequences. In His anger, God sent a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites. It was only stopped when Aaron’s grandson, Phinehas, speared a young Israelite man and Midianite woman engaged in what was probably a fertility rite. We explain why this conflict was more than meets the eye,...

A PAGAN seer 3,400 years ago prophesied not just the coming Messiah, but His ultimate victory over the Watchers and their demonic offspring, the Nephilim. This week, we discuss Balaam’s third and fourth oracles over Israel, which includes the messianic prophecy of Numbers 24:17–19. We explain why his oracle refers to the coming of Jesus and his return at the end of the age.

A DONKEY displayed more discernment and wisdom than a man whose fame as a seer and prophet was renowned in the Jordan River valley for centuries. This week, we begin the story of Balaam son of Beor, hired by the Balak, the king of Moab, to curse Israel. We discuss God’s warning to Balaam, the identity of the Angel of YHWH, Balak’s changes of venue as he tried to find a more effective place for Bal...

ANOTHER SQUABBLE over water points to the location of Mount Sinai being farther north than many think. This week, we fast forward about 39 years to the fortieth year of the Israelites’ wanderings and discuss the second time Moses brought forth water from the rock called Meribah, which means “quarreling.” This site is also mentioned in Exodus 17:1–7. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the ro...

WE HUMANS are blinded by sight. That is, our natural senses often prevent us from seeing what’s really going on around us in the spirit realm. This week, we discuss the rebellion of Korah and Dathan, who accused Moses of taking Israel from a land flowing with milk and honey (Egypt) to die in the wilderness. The actions of the rebels, who’d seen God part the Red Sea, provide manna and water, and ot...

ACTIONS HAVE consequences. In the case of Israel, the decision to rebel against Moses after the “bad [or ‘evil’] report” of the spies sent into Canaan led to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. We discuss the intercession of Moses for the people when God declared that He would “strike them with the pestilence,” and the possibility that “Pestilence,” the Canaanite pestilence-god Deber, was...

IT’S EASY to criticize the Hebrews of Moses’ day for their lack of faith. After all, hadn’t they seen the plagues that compelled Egypt to let them go, the parting of the Red Sea, and the manna that miraculously appeared six days a week? We’re not in their shoes. When we take a good, hard look at ourselves, we see that we’re not all that different. This week, we discuss that complaints of the Israe...

WE’D LIKE to say that we planned to read about Israel’s first Passover celebration after leaving Egypt on this Passover weekend, but we didn’t. God’s scheduling is clearly much better than ours. We discuss the importance of the Passover and the reason the Israelites waited more than a month to decamp and begin moving from Sinai, the connection between Sinai and Paran, and the significance of the s...

THE NAZIRITES were men and women set apart for God by a vow so serious that not only were they forbidden to drink wine, they couldn’t even eat grapes or raisins. We discuss the Nazirite vow, the priestly blessing, and the first consecration of the Tabernacle before Moses and the Israelites began their journey from Sinai toward the Promised Land.

GOD CLAIMED for Himself the tribe of Levi in lieu of the firstborn sons of all Israel. We discuss the duties of the clans of the Levites—the Kohathites, Gershonites, and Merarites—and why it was imperative that only the high priest entered the Holiest Place. We also discuss rules concerning unclean people, confession of and restitution for sins, and a test for adultery that seems odd, if not unfai...

ISRAEL PREPARES for war: This week, we study the arrangement of the tribes around the tabernacle and their order as they organize for the march to Canaan. We discuss traditions regarding the banners under which the tribes marched and compare that to the prophecies of Jacob over his sons in Genesis 49.

GOD MADE His promises to Israel contingent upon following His statutes and commandments. The blessings He promised for obedience were wonderful—harvests in abundance, peace and safety in the land—but the punishments for rebellion were severe. We’re in the middle of a long war for control of God’s creation, Earth, and those He charged with serving as His imagers—God’s moral agents—on it. His instru...

THE JUBILEE of YHWH is diametrically opposed to the way the world has set up our modern financial system—which shouldn’t be a surprise. This week, we discuss the Jubilee, a system that God designed specifically to prevent the kind of debt servitude that’s all too common in our modern world. We also explain the theology of “the Name,” which does not at all refer to God’s reputation.

GOD’S HOLINESS requires perfection—a standard we can never meet on our own. This week, we discuss rules for the priesthood: Marriage, mourning, and physical qualifications; things the priests were forbidden to eat; and physical disqualifications for sacrificial animals. We also discuss the Feasts of the Lord and some of the odd connections between the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feast of Taberna...

SPEAKING WITH SPIRITS was strictly forbidden by God. This might seem to be a quaint and antiquated notion, but the fact that we encounter the prohibition three times in our reading today indicates that this was a serious issue in ancient Canaan. Scholars are not entirely agreed on the meaning of the words translated into English as “mediums” and “necromancers,” ʾobot and yiddeʿonim. There are vari...

IT’S ANOTHER weird section of scripture this week, which, as you know by now, means it’s important. In the middle of rules pertaining to sacrifices, God gave this to Moses: So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. -Leviticus 17:7, ESV What are goat demons? It’s significant that this warning comes shortly after God instructed Moses and Aaron on the ato...

THE SCAPEGOAT is a concept that originated at Mount Sinai. This week, we discuss God’s commandment to send a goat into the wilderness for Azazel, similar rites in northern Syria and southern Anatolia in the days of the patriarchs, and the role of Azazel (or Asael), one of the Watchers who descended to Mount Hermon in the days of Jared, in teaching humanity forbidden knowledge.

ISRAEL WAS commanded to be holy because God was literally in their midst. The Law set them apart for Yahweh, distinct from other people. We note that some foods declared unclean, especially pigs, may have been so designated because of their use in pagan rituals (in the case of pigs, as offerings to the dead). However, the bottom line is that God established very specific rituals for washing and sa...

THE FORMAL beginning of the Levitical priesthood and the sacrificial system is the focus of this week’s study. After going through the rules for the sacrifices in our last couple of studies, this week we discuss the formal ordination of Aaron and his sons. Sadly for Nadab and Abihu, their term as priests didn’t last very long. Leviticus 10 describes their destruction by God for offering unauthoriz...

SINS OF omission are just as serious in the Lord’s eyes as those we commit intentionally. We continue our discussion of the detailed laws for the burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering, ordination offering, and peace offering, with a reminder that all of this is just “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Col. 2:17; see also Hebrews 8:5 and 10...

GOD GAVE very explicit instructions for the slaughter of animals required for the slaughter of animals for required offerings. This week, we look at the first four: burnt, grain, peace, and sin offerings. (We’ll get to guilt offering next week.) We note some of the seemingly random requirements, such as slaughtering the bull for the burnt offering on the north side of the altar, and God’s repeated...

THE CONSTRUCTION of the tabernacle is the focus of this week’s study—although, as usual, we follow some rabbit trails that lead us to other parts of the Bible. We compare the number of stones in the high priest’s ephod to the precious stones covering the rebel in Eden, as described in Ezekiel 28. That led us to another discovery—namely, that the Septuagint and some modern English translations, suc...