Daily Bible reading outline and prayer, Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Numbers 11-13 (chronological); Numbers 21-23, Mark 7:14-8:10 (OT/NT)

Tuesday, February 28, 2023 chronological reading: Numbers 11-13

Some days are too hard to summarize. This is one. Most of the verses from Numbers today are left intact. 

so far in Numbers: God has Moses count the number of men, twenty years and older, after naming a leader of each tribe; the total count was 603,550, excluding the Levites, who were not numbered since they were in charge of the tabernacle of the testimony; God orders the location of each tribe's camp, around the tabernacle of the testimony and the Levites in the middle, and the order in which each tribe should set out as they move; God sets aside the Levites to serve Him, in place of all the firstborn of men that He sanctified to Himself at the first Passover in Egypt; God numbers every son of Levi from one-month-old and upward and the number is 22,000; God then numbers every firstborn male from one-month-old and upward of the sons of Israel and the number is 22,273; God has Moses ransom the excess 273 by giving five shekels, according to the established shekel of the sanctuary, apiece to Aaron and his sons, the priests; God then numbers all the males between 30- and 50-years old of each of the three families of the tribe of Levi (Gershon, Kohath, and Merari—the total is 8580) and assigns their work in support of the ordained priests (Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar) and the tabernacle; the family of Kohath (from whom Moses and Aaron are descended), with Eleazar having responsibility over them, is to carry the holy objects and furnishings of the sanctuary, after Aaron and his sons prepare and cover them (no one but Aaron and his sons can see or touch them or they will die—explains a later death from the touching of the ark of the testimony); the family of Gershon, with Ithamar over them, is to serve and carry the essentially all the material components of the tent and court; the family of Merari, also with Ithamar over them, is to serve and carry all the hardware components required to erect the tent and court; each man is assigned by name the object he is to carry; God reminds Moses that those that are unclean from leprosy, a discharge, or because of a dead person are to go outside the camp, and the sons of Israel obey; God reminds that sins against mankind require restitution plus 1/5 and a ram of atonement for a sin offering, which provides a portion for the priest; God explains the law of jealousy when a husband suspects a wife has been unfaithful; God explains the law of the Nazarite; God gives Aaron a blessing to pronounce over His people; the leaders of the tribes give an offering of six covered carts and twelve oxen, and God directs Moses to give them to the families of Gershon and Merari who, under the direction of Ithamar, were in charge of carrying all but the holy objects for the tabernacle and surrounding court; the leaders of the tribes give offerings over 12 days in order to dedicate the altar, and then God begins to speak with Moses from above the mercy seat; Aaron lights the lampstand; the Levites are cleansed for service; the first Passover anniversary is celebrated; explanation of the cloud covering the tabernacle dictating the movement of the people of Israel; making and explanation of the use of two silver trumpets (meetings, movement, war); the Israelites finally set out from Sinai in the second month of the second year

Numbers 11

v1-3 "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the LORD; and when the LORD heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the LORD and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Taberah [burning], because the fire of the LORD burned among them.
 

v4-6 "The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, 'Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.’

v7-9 "Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. The people would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar, and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it; and its taste was as the taste of cakes baked with oil. When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.”

v10-15 "Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, 'Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, "Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers”? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, "Give us meat that we may eat!" I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.’

v16-23 "The LORD therefore said to Moses, 'Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it all alone. Say to the people, "Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, 'Oh that someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt.' Therefore the LORD will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, 'Why did we everleave Egypt?’"' But Moses said, 'The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 on foot; yet You have said, "I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month." Should flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be sufficient for them? Or should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be sufficient for them?' The LORD said to Moses, 'Is the LORD’S power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not.’

v24-25 "So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD. Also, he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and stationed them around the tent. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him; and He took of the Spirit who was upon him and placed Him upon the seventy elders. And when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do it again.

v26-30 "But two men had remained in the camp; the name of one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them (now they were among those who had been registered, but had not gone out to the tent), and they prophesied in the camp. So a young man ran and told Moses and said, 'Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.' Then Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses from his youth, said, 'Moses, my lord, restrain them.' But Moses said to him, 'Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’S people were prophets, that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!' Then Moses returned to the camp, both he and the elders of Israel.

v31-35 "Now there went forth a wind from the LORD and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground. The people spent all day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers) and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague. So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had been greedy. From Kibroth-hattaavah the people set out for Hazeroth, and they remained at Hazeroth."

Numbers 12

v1-8 “Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite [Canaanite, descendants of Ham—although father was Midianite, descendant of Abraham’s wife after Sarah] woman); and they said, 'Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?' And the LORD heard it. (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) Suddenly the LORD said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, 'You three come out to the tent of meeting.' So the three of them came out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, He said,
'Hear now My words:
If there is a prophet among you, 
I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream.
Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household;
With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the LORD.
Why then were you not afraid
To speak against My servant, against Moses?’

v9-12 "So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed. But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. Then Aaron said to Moses, 'Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!’ 

v13 "Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, 'O God, heal her, I pray!’

v14-16 "But the LORD said to Moses, 'If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.' So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again. Afterward, however, the people moved out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran."

Numbers 13

v1-2 “Then the LORD spoke to Moses saying, 'Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.’ 

v3 "So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the LORD, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel.”

v4-16 "These then were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua...from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat...from the tribe of Judah, Caleb…from the tribe of Issachar, Igal...from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea...from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti...from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel...from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi...from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel…from the tribe of Asher, Sethur...from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi...from the tribe of Gad, Geuel...These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.
v17-20 "When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, 'Go up there into the Negev; then go up into the hill country. See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many. How is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they like open camps or with fortifications? How is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? Make an effort then to get some of the fruit of the land.' Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.
v21-24 "So they went up and spied out the land...Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs. That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.

v25-27 "When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Thus they told him, and said, 'We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 

v28-29 'Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.’

v30 "Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, 'We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.’ 

v31-33 "But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.' So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’"

Tuesday, February 28, 2023 OT/NT readings: Numbers 21-23, Mark 7:14-8:10

I’ll outline the chapters in Numbers as we come to them in the chronological reading plan (see above).

so far in Mark: the gospel of Jesus Christ begins with His messenger John preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; John baptizes Jesus, the Spirit descends upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven; Jesus is tempted by Satan during 40 days in the wilderness; John is arrested; Jesus begins preaching in Galilee, saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel”; Jesus calls four disciples; Jesus begins teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath; unclean spirit recognizes Jesus and He casts it out; news about Jesus spreads around Galilee; Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law; He heals many in the evening; He goes away to secluded place in morning and then goes to other synagogues in Galilee to preach; He heals a leper; news of Him so spread He could no longer publicly enter a city; Jesus heals paralytic to demonstrate He has authority to forgive sins; Pharisees criticize Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners, but He explains sick need a physician; Jesus explains to the complaining Pharisees that His disciples will fast when He is taken away; parable of fresh wineskins; Jesus’ argument with the Pharisees where He explains that the Sabbath was made for man; Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath and the Pharisees begin to plot to destroy Him; crowds followed Him and healed many; demons recognized Him as the Song of God; He appointed His twelve disciples to preach and cast out demons; His family comes to gather Him because they think He has lost His senses; scribes say Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul; Jesus explains in parable how this cannot be true; Jesus describes the unforgivable sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit; Juses explains that hose who do His will are part of His family; Jesus teaches in parables: the sower and the seed, lampstand, standard of measure, harvest, mustard seed; Jesus calms the seas; Jesus heals the demon-possessed man in the country of the Gerasenes; Jesus heals the woman with the hemorrhage and the synagogue official Jairus’ daughter; Jesus visits Nazareth but does few miracles there because of their unbelief; Jesus sends His disciples out in pairs to preach men that they should repent; John is beheaded by Herod; Jesus invites His disciples to rest after busy ministry; the crowds follow and Jesus feeds 5000; Jesus walks on the water; Jesus returns to Gennesaret and heals many; Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for neglecting the commandments of God for the traditions of men

Mark 7

v14-23 “After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, 'Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. [If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”] When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He said to them, 'Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?' (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, 'That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

v24-30 “Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice. But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And He was saying to her, 'Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered and said to Him, 'Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.' And He said to her, 'Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.’ And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.”

v31-36 "Again He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of Decapolis. They brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored Him to lay His hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ that is, 'Be opened!' And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. They were utterly astonished, saying, 'He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’”

Mark 8
v1-10 “In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, 'I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.’ And His disciples answered Him, 'Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?' And He was asking them, 'How many loaves do you have?’ And they said, ‘Seven.' And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people. They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well. And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces. About four thousand were there; and He sent them away. And immediately He entered the boat with His disciples and came to the district of Dalmanutha."

Dear Lord, three days. The people had only journeyed three days and they were already complaining. That’s us too, isn’t it? We can’t see what we have. We complain about what we don’t have. They had just celebrated the ordination of the priests, the dedication of tabernacle, and Passover, all of which involved feasting…and they were already complaining. They weren’t amazed that something they could use as a grain replacement, that they could make cakes out of, would fall every night. The people cried out to Moses, instead of crying out to You. The burden of others is too much for anyone to bear without Your Spirit. Thank You that You have given us Your Spirit. Even Moses, who had seen Your miracles of quail and manna, could not conceive that You could provide so much meat for the people to eat without killing flocks and herds. We doubt Your provision. The people did not even thank or praise You when You provided meat. They just greedily gathered. Thank You that You no longer burn us for similar action, although we deserve it. Joshua defended Moses as special, not wanting others to prophesy, but Aaron and Miriam made the opposite mistake. Joshua was jealous for Moses. Aaron and Miriam were jealous for themselves. But it was Moses who asked for mercy on Miriam’s behalf. May we be convicted by Moses’ humility and compassion. Help us not to be guilty of “nevertheless” when You have made us promises. Let us be like Joshua and believe Your promises. The Mosaic Law declared what made people clean or unclean. By Jesus’ pronouncement, foods do not make us unclean. Sin make us unclean. Thank You for Jesus’ blood that cleanses us. It seems Jesus tired of people coming to Him solely to get what they could from Him. He rewarded the Syrophoenician woman because she acknowledged Him as Lord. He rewarded others out of compassion. Thank You for compassion and Your mercy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.