For forty years I led you through the desert … yet your sandals did not wear out." Duet. 29:5
In the second year after the Israelites were delivered out of Egyptian bondage, a census was taken. Over 600,000 men, from twenty years old and upward and able to go to war, were counted. This was besides women and children. And the tribe of Levi was not counted at all.
What a vast multitude!
“Every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff shall be holy to the Lord.”
Life itself is holy. Everything we are and have belongs to God. He is the Author of the sacrifices, the appointed feasts, the ceremonies and all the regulations. Life is full of meaning because God is there. He is the center and circumference of all true and lasting happiness.
“Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them.”
Here is the merciful heart of God, whose aim in executing judgment is to draw his people back to Himself.
“I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years.”
The covenant God of Israel would provide for his people. It was theirs to obey.
The Lord specifically directed Moses to have the people stone the man to death who had blasphemed the Name, the holy name of God.
He was made an example. He had violated the second commandment, not to take the name of the LORD God in vain.
The many feasts appointed by the Lord are instructive of the fact that there is reason both to celebrate and to reflect throughout the year.
“I brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God.”
This was the reason why the Lord rescued the people of Israel from Egypt – to be their God.
There were special rules for the priest and more so for the high priest, because of their office and their work in the sanctuary.
“I am the Lord your God who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore separate the clean … from the unclean.”
The Lord had separated out from among all the peoples of the earth a special people – special only because the Lord himself had made a covenant with them.
They were to be a shining light on a hill, a testimonial nation and, I believe, a kingdom of missionaries to eventually reach the world.
“And you shall observe all my statutes… and do them: I am the Lord.”
Over and over again in this chapter the people are reminded of the essential reason for their required obedience – “I am the Lord”.
Stop and think, O Israel, who it was who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt, who it was who met with Moses on the top of fiery Mt. Sinai and wrote out with own hand on tablets of stone his commandments for you, who it was who provided gushing water from a rock to quench your thirst and nourishing bread from heaven to assuage your hunger, who it is who is guiding you through a barren wilderness to a promised land flowing with milk and honey, who it is who provides a way for your sins to be atoned for, who it is whose heart’s desire is to dwell with a people all his own.
“I am the Lord.”
