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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast, The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Chapter 21, verse 1. Now, the Canaanite king of Arad, who was dwelling in the desert, heard the news for Israel came by way of authoring. Therefore, he made war against Israel and they carried off captives from them as booty. Okay, so this quote unquote king, it's really more of a chief or a chieftain leader, is it's a nomadic group. right of canaanites that live out in the desert to the east of moab right they're having to go around so these are desert raiders and uh this erad is their chief and so he finds out oh there's this group migrating through here edom didn't let them in so they come and raid the israelites camp they take captives who they would have sold as slaves they take stuff right as bandits do Then Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, I will anathematize him in his cities. So the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they anathematized him in his cities. Therefore, they called the name of that place Anathema. So anathematized means they excommunicated them. No.

so they're translating the word harem that's where horma comes from they're translating the

word harem uh the old king james translated that as banned they placed them under the band like they were on a banned books list or something uh had to put parental advisory stickers on the on the raiders so yeah destroyed is really much closer right but harem is used this is where haram in arabic comes from uh that means accursed right they treated them as accursed things and so this is the particular groups that we've referred to as the giant clans the particular groups that all the way back since abraham god has been saying that the israelites were going to remove because of the abominations they're committing we'll talk about the that more very soon we'll talk about that more next week because we're going to be og the king of bishan and sihon king of the emorites og and his iron bed but uh so these these groups what distinguishes them from the irregular run-of-the-mill Canaanites, right, is that they're to be totally wiped out. God is not going to have them wipe out just everyone who lives there. It's these particular tribes and these particular groups who are practicing these particular things, right? Because of the abominations they're committing, you have to remember, and we've seen this several times in the torah like on the day of atonement and stuff uh that sin that evil that especially these kinds of abominations kind of taint even the physical world they leave behind this taint of sin and evil when these horrible hideous kind of things are done right and we're including, I mean, we're talking about things like human sacrifice, cannibalism, right? Demonic sexual immorality, right? This is not just like, man, those guys swindle people at business a lot, right? I mean, this is like next level stuff where God is saying no. And so part of that, them being under the ban and them being wiped out is Israel isn't allowed to take plunder, right? They're not allowed to take the animals. They're not allowed to, because this is not about Israel getting rich. This is not about them taking territory. This is not about any of that. This is about them being the arm of God's justice to cut off these evils that they're committing. And so that's what's going on here with this vow taken to the Lord that they all, they're not all saying this in unison again, right? this is moses is that they're saying look what these people are doing is wicked is evil if you'll give us victory over them we will treat them that way we aren't going to raid them back we aren't

going to take their money we're not going to right we're not going to settle here right we're not gonna, but we will treat

we will just do your justice if that's what you want us to do. And God says, yes. Right. Because the Israelites are apparently not the only people who have been killed, enslaved, whatever else these people are doing right to strangers in the desert. Right. They've been doing this for a long time. They've been murdering people. They've been taking their stuff. They've been selling slaves. And there's a lot of, most slaves were to some degree sex slaves in the ancient world, right? So that enters in. So they've been making this a way of life. And so they say to God, look, is this a case where justice? And God says, yes, there needs to be some justice here. And so that's what happens. And this is foreshadowing of our friends, Og and Sihon, who we'll get to next time. and we'll talk about when we talk about Og and Sihon next time why we sing about them all the time in Matins yeah it's not Christmas until Og has been slain okay but before that verse 4 then they departed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea and they went around the land of Edom and the people became discouraged on the way. You don't say, right? But they're having to take this much longer route is the idea. And these are people who do not have a, I mean, these are, you know, five-year-olds on a long car trip, as we've seen. They don't do well with even low-grade minor frustrations. So the people spoke against God and against Moses. why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us in the desert where there is no bread nor water and our soul is weary of this worthless bread the manna yes sure you're miraculously providing us with food and water every day but we're sick of it can we get some mac and cheese in here no um that's they are five-year-olds on a car trip they just want mac and cheese and chicken fingers right so this again but this shows you there's no bread and we're sick of this bread the idea is you're supposed to see how irrational this is at this point like we have to remind ourselves once again this is not here so we can point laugh at them this is so we can see ourselves how often we complain well god i know

you've given me this and this and this and this but i want this and i'm gonna be miserable because i don't have this other thing right yeah yeah nobody has cause to complain during lent in southern louisiana yeah like we have the easiest let on the face of the earth unless you have a seafood allergy then i feel for you but that's if you have a seafood allergy and live in southern louisiana i feel for you we just have someone like that who just left actually yeah um that's rough but so right this is us right but we're at it again so the lord sent venomous serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the children of israel died okay so there's an outbreak of snakes in the camp this is some people's worst possible nightmare people who have a phobia of snakes but there are venomous snakes who live in the desert but so these are these are animals that are native to right so what is god actually doing here he's not protecting the people right he's not protecting them so far they haven't had to deal with things like venomous snakes in the camp why because god's been protecting them okay what did they just say to god you don't give us any food and we don't like the food you get us. Right? You're not taking care of us. You don't care if we live or die. You brought us out here to die. And so God is giving them a taste of, hey, what would that actually look like if I wasn't taking care of you? Let me lift my hand up a little bit just for a second. Right off the back of the bike and see how you do. I'll see you later. and so this happens right not completely he doesn't wipe them all out he doesn't right more raiders don't show up and kill them all right but give us an example and so literally the the literal phrase that's translated here venomous serpent is fiery serpent or burning actually technically burning serpent the burning being the venom right that's how they describe the venom because it bites you it burns right you can feel it you can see it moving up your arm they don't have anti-venom at this point in history that is not a nice way to die right but this word here for serpent is also the same word the same word for serpent

that's used back in Genesis 3. Nakash. So, what happened in Genesis 3? Not just in general, but in detail. When the serpent showed up, what did he say to Eve? Did God really say not to eat this? Well, if he did, it's because he knows that if you do, you'll be like him. and he doesn't want you to be like him right meaning what don't don't trust him that he knows what's best for you don't trust the path that he's set in front of you right in terms of coming to maturity and coming to know him here's a shortcut right here's a thing right and they go for it Eve goes for it then Adam when he sees that she doesn't immediately drop dead because it's clear in the text as we talked about at the time Adam is standing right there like Eve eats it and then just hands him some so he's standing there the whole time watching this happen like she's a guinea pig you know like anything happen to her okay she seems okay And so there's a deliberate connection being made here. And let's talk about the burning. Because what else happens in Genesis 3 when she listens to the serpent? They kind of get injected with something. Adam and Eve. that brings about their death. Yeah. That you might not drop dead that second. Right? They don't drop dead that second. Right? But the venom is there. And the venom causes what? Causes all the suffering they're going to experience now until they die and eventually it's going to cause their death. And so there's also an image of sin here, right? Sin as the venom of the serpent, that it injects it to you, right? Like it gets its hooks in you, and it's going to kill you. Verse 7, then the people came to Moses and were saying, We sinned, for we spoke against the Lord and against you. Therefore, pray to the Lord and let him take away the serpent from us. So Moses prayed for the people. Where did we see that phrase? No, this whole thing.

Remember back in Exodus? Remember the plagues? Right? They'd go to Pharaoh. They'd say, let the people go. Pharaoh would usually say no, or sometimes he'd say, well, okay, and then he'd change his mind, or whatever happened, right? and then frogs flies that's whatever right plague would show up pharaoh would come and say what moses pray to your god that he would take away the frogs flies okay uh that's the same wording right that we have here those people come to pray to god we messed up pray to god to take away the snakes right so this is another way this is another way that that we should be clued into this right they've become kind of like the egyptians they say why did you bring us up out of egypt like we'd rather be back in egypt we'd rather we hadn't put the blood on our door we'd rather be egyptians right and so god's treating them like egyptians right this is what happens to egyptians this is what you're saying you wanted but this is where it gets different right because in those cases in that pattern moses would pray and the frogs would go away or Moses would pray and the water would turn back into water for being blood, right? Whatever would be reversed. That's not what happens here. Moses prays for the people. And then the Lord said to Moses, make a serpent for yourself and put it on a signal pole and it shall be if a serpent should bite someone, when the one bitten looks at it, he shall live. So a couple of things here. so moses is going to make this bronze serpent which is itself kind of a play on words because uh nikash is the word for serpent nekashet in hebrew means bronze right it's related to the same word uh to something that's shining like metallic reflective of shining um which is part of the play on words that's going on in genesis 3 but so you're gonna make a serpent you're gonna make an image of what is afflicting them you're gonna make an image of what is afflicting them you're gonna put it up on a pole in the middle of the camp and anyone who goes who gets bitten they can look at it because it's up on a pole right so you can see it from the central location and they won't die so number one god just told him to make a graven image

of something on the earth is this not a violation of the second commandment sorry iconoclasts right clearly not because god's telling them to do it but here's what's interesting and we're not going to get there for a year and a half two years so we'll talk about it now later in israel's history they will have kept this broad serpent and there will be some people who start worshiping it as an idol and so god's going to command them at that point to destroy it because they're worshiping it as an idol but that means that making a bronze serpent hoisting it up on a pole in front of the people And having people look to it and venerate it in order to be healed from snake bite is not idolatry. Idolatry is something else, right? And when they start to do idolatry with it, then it gets destroyed. But there's not even here any perceived danger of idolatry, at least in this moment. Oh, you need to be careful, Moses, that they don't start worshipping it as an idol. Because, again, this is not just a distinction that they started making in the iconoclastic controversies. Veneration, what we now call veneration, and what we now call worshipping something, are and always have been two different things. Right? They're not the same thing. They're not on a continuum. It's not like, oh, I venerated too hard and I did an idolatry. Okay? Like, that's not a danger here. There's no danger of idolatry discussed here. People can take any graven thing and do idolatry with it if they want to. They can't whittle something with their own hand and use it for idolatry. but just the fact that an image of something exists the fact that it exists in a religious context the fact that it's presented before all the people and the fact that God is working miracles through it is not seen here as presenting any danger of idolatry because that's a totally different thing than what's going on with idolatry in idolatry the object is seen as being the embodiment of a god And you offer sacrifices to it You can have metaphorical idolatry St. Paul talks about that He says that covetousness is idolatry Like greed is idolatry But the comparison he's making is You sacrifice things to it Right People sacrifice things to their greed And people

To their greed Right so there's no danger that anybody's going to go and start sacrificing animals to the thing on the pole. This is a totally other separate thing. Not related. They're not going to be bowing down to it and serving it, and so it's not a violation of the second commandment. The second commandment does not prohibit having images of things. Jewish synagogues, from the time of Christ even, are full of images of things. the temples full of images of things the tabernacle we saw had keruvim all over it which are things of the heavens above had images of things no one was worshipping them no one was tempted to because again you can't do it that's what you do accidentally right because you did something wrong oops idolatry right that's not how it works yeah right but now notice also here's another sorry calvinist uh the people do have to do something right because this isn't like with pharaoh moses doesn't just pray to god ask god to forgive them and oh all the stakes go away and everybody who's still alive is healed god could certainly do that right he had St. Patrick drive all the snakes out of Ireland he could certainly get rid of them from the camp right so God could do that that's not what God does if the people want to be saved saved from what saved from their sin and its consequences if they want to be saved from their sin and its consequences what do they have to do they have to look to this image that God has provided to them that image in a certain way embodies embodies their sin and its consequences right in this case the venomous snake we'll read the last verse here and then we'll talk a little more so Moses made a copper serpent and put it on a signal pole and it happened when a serpent bit anyone and he looked at the copper serpent he left right so it it works right um so the most famous place where this little story in numbers gets referenced is jesus says real briefly and doesn't elaborate right he says uh as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the son of man be lifted up in saint john's gospel that's it that's all he says he doesn't explain any more than that right so first of all he's assuming people know this story right that we just read what does it mean so the son of the son of man obviously is the way christ

referred to himself what does him being lifted up refer to it's a john's gospel it refers to him being crucified right he says when i'm lifted up i'll draw all men to myself right talks about being lifted up being exalted all all the way through and there's a there's a certain irony there in using that phrase because that phrase being lifted up also means being like glorified right like being elevated being glorified being crucified is kind of the opposite of that right right so there's a certain right irony there and how we were talking about hagel before but of uh of christ using that phrase right so he's comparing his crucifixion he's comparing his cross to the serpent in this episode and so let's think about that right the serpent that they're looking at is an image of their sin and its consequences what is the cross what is crucifixion death right the most vile way humans had come up with today to murder each other in the most painful and horrific way possible, humiliating way possible, right? An image of our sin and its consequences. And so what is Christ saying? Christ is saying, if you look to that, you'll be saved. You lift your eyes and you look at that, right? And behold that, you will be saved. This is why traditionally, I don't know if we have this because of the way our sealing works, but traditionally on the top of an iconostasis in an orthodox church you have a little wooden cross at the peak you look up to it right which is a way in the architecture of presenting this idea that we get from what Jesus said right and from the story and so you also have to add that there's an element here where we have to do something that's why I said sorry Calvinists Thank you. It's not just Christ is crucified and he dies, so, well, that takes care of that sin thing. Now everybody goes to heaven, right? These people had to repent and they had to do something, right? They had to repent and they had to look to, right, the provision that God had sent them, right? They had to repent. We have to repent and look to the cross. And that does what? purifies us from the venom of the serpent, purifies us from sin. Christ's blood, like the Day of Atonement, purifies us from sin and its effects. And its effects upon us. Notice also, in the original context, one note, before we move on past it,

this is backing up a little bit, but so they were saying, we wish we had stayed in Egypt. so they get a they get a egypt style plague right and what did they have to do in egypt to avoid the plagues especially the last one they had to go put the blood on the door right so part of the reason for them having to do something here is they're given another chance to opt in you're saying you wish you hadn't opted in right back then you wish you had just stayed there here's the consequence of that okay well here's a chance to just like they had to do something they had to put the blood on the door here's another chance to opt in god doesn't save us against our will sorry calvinists we have to opt in what makes things like hell a possibility is the fact that at least on a theoretical level humans have the ability to choose not to opt in god does not force himself on people it's people who who say you know anybody who approaches universalism in a way that says to you well if god was really good he would just force himself on everyone he would love everyone and he would force everyone to love him back does that sound good to you does that sound like a good person to you even scarier to me are the the universalist folks who are like well no like there are people who don't love god but so when those people die god sends them to be tortured but just for a limited amount of time until they decide to love him like how monstrous is that i get that you don't love me so i'll just torture you until you do yeah that's a way more loving god than the traditional view that's way better than the traditional view of god yeah okay right like it's like glenn close and fatal attraction is your image of god like what um that's uh god doesn't boil people's bunnies anyway um there's a deep cut uh so but yeah this god does not force himself on people right because that's not what how what love is or how love works right and and we if we as humans are able to discern that right if a parent like let's be honest you want a dog or a kid to really love you and be dependent on you beat the tar out of them let's be honest right you could do that you could be violent you can condition people you can torture people and animals

and get them to love you and be totally dependent on you right you could do that but none of us as sinful humans would say that's the image of a loving parent we would say that's monstrous we would say that's evil so why would we think god is that way not that god couldn't do that god can do anything he wants to but he doesn't want to do that because he's a good god right we understand that that's not good we understand that even if you love a child right or a loved one or a friend or a brother or sister you love them and you really want what's best for them right you trying to control them trying to force them to do what you know is right even if you're correct we know that that's not really loving someone yeah but we know that that's not really loving them right that that that really loving someone means allowing them to be free and hoping that they will love you in return wanting them to to love you in return for the love you have for them, but not trying to force it, not trying to compel it, not trying to manipulate it, right? We know that all those things are wrong. So don't project them onto God, right? God is more good than we are, not less. So this is, this is, the idea of human freedom is not incompatible with an all-powerful good God. It's a requirement for that all-powerful God to be good, to be truly good, is to allow us freedom. Even if we choose to misuse that freedom to do dire things to ourselves, right? And each other. Numbers chapter 21, verse 10. We're in a narrative section of Numbers. And as we mentioned, not only are there different types of material in Numbers, but within the narrative section, all of the narrative sections that we read of Exodus, Leviticus, and the first few chapters of Numbers took place over the course of two years. The rest of the book of Numbers takes place over 40 years, right? So there's a very different timescale we're dealing with. And so even when we're in the midst of a narrative section we're getting these sort of individual episodes right and so we finished last time after reading about sort of one set of episodes in the history of israel wandering in the sinai desert and now there's sort of a little time jump now where we're going to move to this is the

beginning of not just a new episode but another set of episodes that sort of follow one after the other right so rather than breaking that last time we just stopped there and now tonight we're going to get into this next set of episodes that unfold sort of in sequence because one leads to another and so where we were at narratively remember Israel is now we're at the end of the or nearing the end of the 40 years and we've seen Miriam and Aaron have both now passed away Moses has been told that he too is going to pass away before they enter that has not happened yet and so because we're nearing the end of the 40 years Israel is now moving again to move, to go into the land of Canaan. And as we mentioned, they're not going up the Cisjordan, the west side of the Jordan river and the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee between the river and the coast, uh, because they'd have to go through the fair, the Philistines territory to do that. Philistines aren't going to let them do that. They're not ready to fight the philistines right and so their plan was to come up on the transjordan side on the east side of the dead sea and the jordan river and the sea of galilee and so they came to the borders of edom which was the southernmost kingdom on that side of the jordan that time edomites are their cousins asked if they could pass through edomite territory made various promises but the edomites just told them straight out, no, stonewalled them, said, you try and come into our territory, it's war. And so that meant Israel looped around south of the border of Edom and came up through the desert on the east side of Edom. And so now, having moved north past that, they're coming up on the territory that belonged at various points to moab the moabites are also sort of their cousins they're more the cousins you keep in the attic and don't talk about because remember they're descended from lot and one of his daughters so that way of talking about their origins is saying something about right sort of considered them um the moabites as we're going to see are firmly pagan at this point but rather than trying to go through moab or deal with the moabites as we're going to see i'm just giving some background we're going to read this but um there is a chunk of what had been moabite territory that at this time had come under the

control of a couple of invading kings. Namely, Og, the king of Bashan, and Sihon, king of Amorites so Sihon is described as the last king of the Amorites. The Amorites, that's the King James-ization of a group of people who were called in Akkadian the Amuru, which means in Akkadian westerners because they were a group of people from what's now like Syria and Lebanon who came and invaded Mesopotamia. more than a thousand years before this right and Hammurabi is probably the most famous one of them they actually took over Mesopotamia established the Babylonian empire which collapsed when the bronze age collapsed and so there were still though Amuru Amorites in those regions of Syria right and lebanon but sihon is sort of the end of that line and the babylonian empire that they ruled for a while has collapsed completely at this point so bashan is an important region to know about biblically because it comes up a lot in the bible um Bashan is an area that's now on the border of Palestine and Syria so part of Bashan was what's now the Golan Heights uh Mount Hermon is in Bashan remember Mount Hermon Hermon comes from through kharam which is also related to the arabic haram that means cursed right so mount hermit is literally the cursed mountain and that's because uh ed apparently to this day i don't recommend going there right now but uh if you go to mount hermit there are the remains of pagan shrines just all over it and one of the very significant pagan shrines that was a shrine to Baal that the Greeks turned into a shrine to their god Pan that's now called Banias is at the base of Mount Hermon so it was a center of Baal worship there so this region which is in the north you're also We get lots of references to the north, right, and to Mount Hermon, right, all through the Bible, and to Bashan as this region is all associated

because of being the center of pagan worship with general evil and darkness, right? This is sort of the evil place, right? And so Og being the king there is just the fact that he's the king of Bashan already tells you there's a problem. uh now we're going to find out deuteronomy because this is going to get revisited deuteronomy the whole episode we're going to read tonight it's going to get revisited deuteronomy it's going to get revisited in not one but two different psalms that's which is how og and sihon end up in uh the polyelios that we sing in matins at feasts right just through those psalms um you'll find out og has a giant iron bed and that is a way of telling us we'll talk more about it when we get to deuteronomy and read that section but this is a way of telling us he's a giant right so he is one of the representatives of those tribes that israel is coming to wipe out these are not just like oh this is a pagan king these are pagan kings who are deeply involved in the kind of dark that human sacrifice cannibalism attended to it demonic sexual rituals this is like the the super dark stuff right so this is not just run-of-the-mill paganism this is like paganism gone completely awry right the worst possible form so these guys Og and Sihon represent and in Arabic I think it's actually he actually shows up in the Quran Og but in Arabic he's referred to as Uj Ibn Anak is one of the Anakim who are one of the giant groups and a way of referring to the giant groups that we'll see in joshua the anakim the sons of anak um so yeah he's one of those bad guys the amorites uh we don't think of hamurabi as a very bad guy but the amorites their claim to power was that they claimed to possess the secret knowledge that the gods revealed to people in the civilization before the flood and that knowledge was not just like what we would consider technology but also things like sorcery and cursing people and and this kind of thing so they were also associated with right that kind of evil so these are sort of the two uh right these are the the the hitlers the stalins the you know whoever you're sort of whoever is in bed with the devil right at your your human representation of the devil your

antichrist figures of this day who have taken a bunch of territory from moab they've come south and taken a bunch of territory from Moab. And so as we're getting ready, as we get into this here, Moses, the Israelites, are going to go through not Moabite territory per se, but former Moabite territory now held by these evil dudes. And like I said, we'll talk more about Og and his bed in Deuteronomy because that's where that gets talked about in more detail. So we'll have plenty of time to talk about Og in different parts of the Bible and Bashan in different parts of the Bible and all that. But for now, unless there are any other leftover comments or questions or generational parenting tips, we'll go ahead and pick up in Numbers chapter 21, verse 10. After this, the children of Israel broke camp and camped in Oboth. From there they broke camp and camped on the other side of the Ar-O-Bot. Then they broke camp at O-Bot and camped, weird transliteration from the Greek, okay, camped at E-Jabarim, which is on the other side in the desert, that is over against Moab toward the sunrise. So where does the sunrise? In the east, so they're east of Moabite territory, right? They're still coming up on the east side of these countries. From there they broke camp and camped in the valley of Zered. From there they broke camp and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is a river, in the desert, which runs along the border of the Amorites. For the Arnon is the border of Moab between Moab and the Amorites. Therefore, it is said in the book, so the river is the border of where Og and Sion, right, they had conquered down to the Arnon River. So the Arnon River is Moab's new border. Not its original border, but its border now. Therefore it is said in the book, what book? We have no clue. The war of the Lord, he set on fire, Zub, and the brooks of the Arnon, and he established the brooks for air to inhabit near the borders of Moab. so the word book there is really in hebrews scroll but again that's just what scroll right um so this is one of the things that our friends who are big fans of the whole jedp thing uh like to point you to say aha see there's these other books that whoever wrote this is

is using right um but that's not a necessary conclusion right the acknowledgement that other books existed at the time this was written now this whatever this other book is does mention yahweh but if you consider what the jedp thesis is right which is that all of those other texts were incorporated into this text why would he all of a sudden quote one of them instead of just incorporating this like he incorporated everything else so this actually kind of argues against that theory right this is arguing that at least at the point this was written whatever this text was the translation I'm looking at says it's the book of the wars of the lord yeah well so you notice said in the book the war of the lord right so there's no punctuation in either the hebrew or the greek so where you choose to so that's a just a decision that the english translator made about where to put the punctuation yeah right this is what it says in the book, the war of the Lord, or this is what it says in the book, the war of the Lord, right? That's, right. Um, so yeah, that's, that's just a decision. There's lots of places. There are a lot more places than people think. When we get into Isaiah, there's actually a very important one of those where I think the English translation tradition has put the punctuation in the wrong place almost uniformly. But yeah, there's no punctuation in either the Hebrew or the Greek and the original text. That's all our decisions as to where sentences end and begin. It's part of the translation process. um but anyway so at least at the time this was written this text still existed and had sufficient integrity to it right that it had to be quoted you couldn't just like steal from it right that means the text still had integrity if a text is mostly forgotten right or people don't know about it or it's because it's obscure or it's ancient or something you could just incorporate that into your text right for you to need to quote something that text as a text as a separate text from what you're writing has to be known right so this actually kind of argues against the jedb thing but just that it was a text that

was known to exist by people right because not only do you have to quote it but quoting it is meaningful right if i just quote some book you never heard of you know i mean i can just make up a name you know as bob weinstein said in his book and make up a title and give you a right you know what i mean but if you've never heard of the person and you've never heard of the book that quote doesn't mean anything to you right so a quotation by definition again presumes this is a text you've heard of this is something you know of that exists right and and the way this particular quote is used right he's explaining that text right this is what that text is referring to that text is referring to the fact that this war had happened and right the amorites had taken up to the arnon that's why it mentions the arnon that's what this quote is about is about this situation that i'm now relating to you the audience for anything written at this time was scribes because literacy rates were tiny right right eventually yeah yeah the way anybody almost anybody would have heard it would have been having it read to them and also likely then explained to them they would know that it existed they wouldn't be able to pick it up and read it they wouldn't own a copy right but right or they would have heard of it they would have heard this and it looks right it's the reason it's put the way it is in most english translations is that it does seem to be a poetic text okay yeah right like in terms of the hebrew matches hebrew poetry so this may be right so i've mentioned before there are parts of and i know this gets the there are certain people who want to read most moses wrote the torah as he wrote every word of what we have now right as i've explained before that's literally impossible the language we have it in now didn't exist when moses would have lived right and there's obvious places where it's been updated because it tells us this city which was later called right like so there are places where it's been updated it's been translated into biblical hebrew right but i've mentioned that there are places where it's like ancient hebrew like more ancient than the rest of what we have now that's kind of unaltered that makes it hard to translate. And if you remember, two of those places, and pretty much everybody agrees on this, even if you believe in the JEDP stuff, you say these are the oldest parts of the Torah. If you don't believe that stuff, you say this is stuff that hasn't been edited,

that hasn't been altered since Moses' time. Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32. both of those those are also the first two biblical odes in orthodox practice those are both hymns they're both poetry so what it seems like is that contemporary with moses a lot of this that was being recorded was being recorded in that form because it was being passed on as oral history so we have in exodus 15 for example the song of the sea at the crossing of Red Sea, is the story of Israel crossing the Red Sea. That story is being preserved in told not in prose narrative right but storytelling through song through being sung right the same way all the centuries later the iliad right is being sung right the odyssey is being sung right and that's how the history is being passed on orally right even if you think moses wrote every word even if you're going to go that far okay there's a period of time between when it happened and when moses wrote it down he's not writing this stuff like as it's happening okay right so there's some of your time during which right there's this oral version that's circulating among the people and the tribes and the families and the clans that are how they're remember telling the story that we've got two generations here right so we're telling our children these stories in this right oral hymnic poetic form right so what it seems like here and i think the best explanation here is that there was some text right that depending on where you put the punctuation maybe it was called the book of the war of the lord or maybe it's just being referred to as the book right and the first part of the quote is the war of the lord hard to know for sure but the rest of it comes from that thing and that thing was the oral recounting of the story we're about to read that preceded Moses or whomever right writing down right the prose narrative for so it's saying you've heard right when you've heard this story you've heard it sung this way and you've heard these lines right this story i'm telling you now in prose form is what that is talking about right it's it's more like um here's the story that that hymn you sang in church was about right right right so you have yeah like we just had in real time this will help people date the time lag between this getting posted in real time uh we just had the feast of saint

lawrence so in his there's there's some verses you do right at the beginning of the cynic sari they talk about him being a sea bass you're like what right like that by itself you're just like huh like something singing about saint lawrence being as the martyr lawrence being a deacon lords being a sea bass right well when you read his life you find out that he the way the the the pagan robins killed him was they grilled they put him on a grill over a fire and not only did he refuse to renounce christ at a certain point while they were torturing he said flip me over i'm done on this side right yeah so so i could tell you that story and then say this is why we sang about him being like a sea bass because of how he died in that comment he made that's kind of what's going on here right there's you've heard this story you've heard the reference of the arnon river that's because at this time it had become the border of Moab because of these kings coming and conquering why did I spend all that time on that? because I think it's important to understand how biblical texts work because if you don't understand that you can come off to all kinds of weird conclusions oh see this is one of the secret texts that we don't have now that lays behind the Torah what did it really say? let's do a scholarly reconstruction of the book of the War of the Lord and a critical edition. There are critical editions of books that don't exist. Q, there's a critical edition of Q. There's a critical edition of J, a theoretical book that doesn't exist, right? Scholars do that kind of thing, and it's because they don't understand how the text is working because they don't really want to because there's not a lot of journal articles in it. Okay. Verse 16, then from there they went to the well, which is the well where the Lord said to Moses, gather the people together and I will give them water to drink. Then Israel sang this song about the well. Begin the song, as for the well, rulers dug it, kings of nations hewed it in stone, and their kingly rule when they were the Lord's. then from the well they went to matana okay now you're going right but we were just saying right so now this should be easy right this is a song the people had heard and they had Heard that this song had something to do with when Moses gathered the people at a well somewhere. And the narrative is saying, this is that well from that song. This is, right, when they were traveling through the desert around Moab.

From Matana to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamot, and from Bamot to the valley, that is the plain of Moab, which from the top of the quarried rock looks out over against the desert. so that was the sort of eastern border there was a rock quarry there that sort of formed the eastern border then Moses sent ambassadors to Sihon king of the Amorites with peaceful words saying let us pass through your land we will journey on the road and not turn aside either into a field or a vineyard we will not drink water from your well we will journey on the king's highway until we pass beyond your borders So this is the same thing he said to Edom It's the same thing he said to Edom This is a very different situation than the Edomites though, right? Amorites, not their cousins Right? Not their kin Bad folks, right? But still Still Moses hasn't been told To go to war with them yet Right? And so he attempts to be at peace with them right uh why is this important well there's a bunch of stuff in the new testament like blessed are the peacemakers christ says it's st paul saying you know as far as is within your power live at peace with all men right and there's a lot of people who want to say like oh yeah that's in the new time the old testament is just war killing god's just blood thirst no right christ is teaching the same thing the torah is teaching st paul's teaching the same thing the torah was teaching no you you don't go to war if you don't have to right be at peace with everybody as much as you can even if they're bad people if they'll be at peace with you the bad people will be at peace with you you'll be at peace with the bad people, right? But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his borders. So Sihon gathered all his people together and went out to engage Israel in battle in the desert. So he came to Jehaz and engaged Israel in battle. So not only does he say no, unlike Edom who threatened, right? After the second try, remember he said, they said no. Moses said, hey, well, look, we will go this other way we won't bother you they said no and they said and if you try we're going to come out we're going to attack you right they threatened Sihon doesn't threaten Sihon gets peaceful words right from Moses and says attack kill them right so he kind of shows his hand here is bad person right we got desert nomads we got these refugees out here in the desert and your response to them being peaceful and asking if they could pass through peacefully is to try to kill

them all. Then Israel struck him with slaughter by the sword and gained dominion over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok. That's another river. As far as the sons of Ammon, for Jazzer is the border of the sons of Ammon. So the Ammonites, remember, are the Moabites' cousins from the other daughter of Lot. So Israel took all these cities and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites in Heshbon and in all its villages. For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites who fought against the former king of Moab and took all his land from Aror to the Arnon, right? So Sihon had come before, took all the land from Aror to the Arnon. Now Moses and the Israelites have come in and taken all that territory. They've got cities now? Yes, yes, they control the whole area. So when we talk about, yeah, when we're talking about kings and we're talking about areas at this point in history, we're talking about individual cities and then the agricultural land around that city that is subject to that city's defense. And the borders of those is where you get all the skirmishes and all the trouble between cities at this point. Now, kings like Sihon, it's not a full-scale empire, right? It's not big enough, really, to be an empire. To be an empire, you really have to have conquered other kings and made them vassals. But these are kings who have control over multiple cities within a region, right? And so he then designates what belongs to what city and is responsible for the whole. territory but that's a step in between like the king of a city that you have in an earlier era and an empire where you have a king who is king over other kings who he has subjugated and made vassals therefore those who speak in riddles say this isn't even what that's a great way to quote something though next academic paper i said to be published i think i'm going to start a quotation with those who speak in riddles say especially if i'm quoting nietzsche or something come to heshbon so the city of sihon may be built and made ready for fire went out from heshbon a flame from the city of sihon it consumed as far as moab and swallowed up the pillars of Arnon. Woe to you, Moab, you were destroyed, O people of Chemosh. Then sons were sold to be kept alive, and then daughters are captives to Sihon, king of the Amorites. Their seed shall perish from Heshbon to Dibon, and then women again stirred up fire over Moab. So when it's talking about those who speak in riddles, what it's really talking about is it's talking about like the seers

and prophets of the Amorites. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of demeaning to them, right? Like, they're not actually giving wisdom. They're not actually seeing the future. They're just speaking in riddles. Now, why would you do that if you were a false prophet? If you make everything you say cryptic enough, right, eventually it'll all come true. Like the Oracle of Delphi. Yeah, or vis-a-vis Nostradamus. if you make sort of vague enough prophecies on a long enough timeline right and especially in this case you're basically prophesying that the king you work for is going to be victorious just kind of a good idea in general right telling him he's going to have a bad time not going to go over well yeah so you're going to talk trash about how great your king and his capital city is and all this but so this is a pagan prophecy from the time and that's what it's talking about and it's saying that's yes yeah and by this point moab is thoroughly pagan okay the edomites were kind of not yet as we saw right there were still some who were worshiping away worshiping the true god but the moabites were now firmly pagan and Chemosh, the moon god, was the one who they considered was the most high god, which is kind of interesting because the Jebusites, who are on the other side of the Jordan, who controlled Jerusalem at this time, had the sun god, Shemesh, as their primary god. And both of them were male in the Canaanite reckoning. You get male moon gods for a lot of ancient history until a certain point and then all of a sudden all the moon gods become female you get a male sun god and a female moon god a lot of this has to do with what we now call politics we as modern people and i mean that very literally because this is something that starts happening in the modern era like the 16th century that's we split all these things up into these sort of different categories and boxes we of politics and religion the whole concept of a religion is from the 17th century um we and we put these things these different categories right and culture is a box and we distinguish between these things that's all mixed up together right the ancient world and so first of all no one had a pantheon of gods that's that's a weird modern thing even the 12 olympians is a modern thing where we've sort of thrown them all together into the Justice League, right? Like, or the Avengers. That's not how that worked. Individual places had spirits attached to them and cities had gods. Generally, each city had one.

Now, the difference between that and the Israelites having one god is that the gods of cities were the god of that city. And they would say, well, no, Athena is the goddess of Athens, not the goddess of Sparta, right? And the god of Sparta also exists, right? And not only also exists, but is related to, in various ways, the goddess of Athens, right? They struggle against each other, or they cooperate, or they... But whether they were struggling against each other or cooperating in heaven was based on whether the cities of Athens and Sparta were fighting each other or cooperating on it.

earth and so as you get larger units you start getting something like a pantheon right with one most high god when you start getting these bigger political units so like when upper and lower egypt are united right well you have the gods of all these different cities all over egypt And so because all those cities are now united, all those gods are seen as united and related to each other. All the familial relationships are in there. And you get a kind of hierarchy based on the power of those cities. And you have, like you could just go through Egyptian history, different gods were the most high god in Egypt at various times in Egyptian history. based on what city was the capital, where the power was, north or south, lower and upper Egypt, and all that moved around all the time. And so there were individual cities that were associated with a moon god, Ur, that Abram came out of. Haran, where he stopped with his father until his father died, dedicated to the same moon god. That's probably why. um and so it is likely that the then current capital of moab was associated with the moon god there was a shrine of the moon god there it became the capital of the predominant city therefore that's now the most high god right and the evidence of that is they're the most prominent city because it was considered that whatever's going on in the heavens mirrors what's going on on earth and vice versa. These are mirrors of each other. And so the same thing then with the Jebusites with Jerusalem. Jerusalem's their capital. It's associated with the sun god, specifically with the sun god Shemesh Zedekah. We talked about this when we talked about Melchizedek. Right? My king is Zedek. right referring to that pagan god we know that's referring to the pagan god for other people who want to propose that or other etymologies because of joshua here in a couple books where they go and fight against jerusalem you know what the king of jerusalem is named adoni zedek my lord is zedek right like still the king has this name associated with the god of that city and then one of the ways that solomon is going to get into trouble is guess what he's going to build in the courtyard of the temple of Jerusalem the chariot of the sun god Zedek who is the pagan god of that city so yeah so all of those so that's how you end up with the moon god is your most high god is that you were a city that had a temple to the moon god in it and now you're ascendant so clearly

so is the moon god yes Verse 31. of the Amorites who dwell in Heshbon. So they struck him, his sons, and all his people until there was no survivor left him and they inherited their land. So they get taken out. Israel now possesses this strip of land in the Transjordan between Moab and Ammon that had been Moabite land that was taken by these kings. Now this is important because this leads right into the story we're going to read next. That's why I'm kind of emphasizing where that land is and everything because how do you imagine the King of Moab feels about this?

Pretty bad.

Right? He didn't want someone else to come in and take the Alsace-Lorraine. He wanted it back.

Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com