The Details before moving in

Today's readings are in Numbers 33, 34.

Like all moves there is a place you've come from (chpt 33) and the place your moving to (34).

The Israelite's journey had been recorded from place to place. There were a lot of places. They have moved to the plains of the Jordan river and we're camped in a place from which they were going to go in and take the land. The key point God makes to them, that will serve prophetically to become a snare to them was in 33 when he says,

"drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places...But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live."

Unfortunately that is what came to pass. We'll see down the road how the incompleteness of their "driving out" led to much pain. It's a principle that is true in the sense of receiving God's grace today. What we leave behind from the past becomes a snare and a source of much grief to our own souls. So Paul says things like: "put off the old man, and put on the new man..."

The last chapter has details on moving into the land. The boundaries will probably seem difficult with the exception that the Mediterranean Sea is the western edge, and the Jordan river is the Eastern edge. The rest of the chapter could help any of us who have children and move in to a new house...take time to discuss dividing up the rooms - in this case the land - and make it possible to have everyone involved. While the land was God's gift to the Israelites, they would have to possess it and then steward it right....that's true for our lives also today.

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