Author

Moses

Written

1400 BC Covering the time period of 1450 - 1400 BC

Main Themes

The famous “40 years” of desert wandering is established in Numbers for theHebrew people. Israel could have been a nation after two or three years, but Numbers shows them being terrible fighters with little to no faith, so God sends them to wander and build maturity and strength.

Numbers takes the reader on the long journey through a desert that lasted 40 years because the people failed tests of endurance, ethics, good judgment, and faith.

There are some long lists in this book, including two censuses.

Numbers shows how God wanted to make the Hebrew people strong, but they were very resistant complainers. Hence, in Numbers 14 is where God gave the sentence that they would wander for 40 years.

Spies saw giants in the land Moses wanted to invade, and grieved the Lord with their lack of faith;

An enemy, Balak, easily taught the people of Israel to worship Baal, a false god, and they upset God so badly that 24,000 of them died.

Key Verses

Numbers 23:19 God is not a human, that he should lie; nor is He a descendant of Adam, that he should change His mind. Has He declared, and will He not bring it to pass? Or has He promised, and will he not carry it out?

Numbers 14:32 But [as for] you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.
33 And your children will wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your harlotry, until your dead bodies are destroyed in the wilderness.