Torah, Torah, Torah

5 min read

10 When the altar was anointed, the leaders brought their offerings for its dedication and presented them before the altar. 11 For the LORD had said to Moses, “Each day one leader is to bring his offering for the dedication of the altar.”

Numbers 7:10

And so, that’s what they did. Each day for twelve days, the leader of each of the tribes of Israel brought the exact same offering:

one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with the finest flour mixed with olive oil as a grain offering; one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense; one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old for a burnt offering; one male goat for a sin offering; and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering.

Moses could have saved a lot of time and whatever media he was using to write on if he had just summarized what the tribes offered like I just did. He could also have listed all the leaders of all the tribes, too.

But Moses didn’t do that. He took the time and the space to write out the offerings of each and every tribe through each and every leader on each and every day of the dedication of the altar.

Why did Moses do that? Did God not know that people today with our ridiculously short attention spans and our pathological aversion to “wasting time” would hate—literally hate—having to read this section of Scripture?

Why did God allow that?

The Israelites in the days of old, and even the Jewish people today, weighed the word of God as being so holy, that they would not even dare to touch the words with their own hands. Doing so would “defile” their hands. In other words, the holiness of the words would make their hands, and by extension themselves, unclean. And so they use a pointer, the tip of which is in the shape of a pointing finger.

And yet, us Protestants today are more inclined to “speed read” through this section, lest we get angry for having to waste our precious times with all this repetition.

One of the problems with our generation is that no one is taught how to read anymore—I mean really read. We want an instant infusion of information, and we balk at the effort it takes to actually experience a text.

Some people find my exegesis of Scripture (Good exegesis always point to Jesus!) to be really enlightened. Other people find my exegesis of Scripture to be borderline heretical. But all I’m doing is reading—experiencing the text as fully as I can and, through that, engaging with the Lord. Because it is the word of God.

Father, Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path. Forgive me. When I saw that today’s text was 80 verses long, my heart balked. But then, I remembered: This is Your word. Make me to love Your word. Make me to hunger and thirst for it. Make Your word like honey on my lips. In Jesus’s name. Amen.