Bamidbar (Archives)

The Enigma of Bamidbar: An Overview

As we hinted at the end of last weeks’ sheet, The Book of Numbers is a problematic book; of all the five books of the Humash (Pentateuch), it is the one whose principle of internal organization is least obvious. The other four books each have a clear thrust: Genesis, following the “beginnings” of mankind in Chs. 1-11, tells the story of the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the twelve sons; Exodus carries us from Israel’s oppression and redemption to the epiphany at Sinai and the construction of a home for the Divine indwelling in the Sanctuary; Leviticus is essentially a codex of laws, developing the theme of how one lives with the Divine presence in ones midst, beginning with sacrifices, through the demands of purity and holiness, and concluding with an admonition; Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell address—containing historiography, exhortation, a review of the law, covenantal ratification ceremonies, and deathbed blessing.

But what is the unifying theme of Bamidbar, or Numbers, as it is called in English? It seems a hotchpotch of narratives, lists, and laws, thrown together in seemingly random order. Moreover, it includes several distinct units that seem to stand by themselves, such as the story of Balaam in Chs 22-24, and even one unit, set off by two inverted letter nuns, which is in one place described as an entire book in its own right, consisting of…. two verses! (a total of 85 Hebrew letters; I refer to 10:35-36)

In the other books of the Humash, one might say that the central figure is God as Creator and Covenant Maker; God the Redeemer; God the Holy One and Lawgiver; and Moses the Teacher. Here, the unifying theme seems to be the People of Israel itself, in all its diversity and almost manic shifts of mood and morale; the People Israel, newly redeemed from slavery and dwelling in the wilderness, a kind of “nowhere land,” thrust upon its own devices, so to speak, to maintain some kind of spiritual equilibrium and integrity—in brief, all the diverse elements needed for a people to become a people.

The book may be divided into three parts:

1) Chs. 1-10 show the people in a static situation, as yet encamped next to the mountain in the “wilderness of Sinai” (or Horeb). These chapters contain two central elements: the initial census, with the accompanying schematic portrait of the people itself; and certain miscellaneous laws, encompassing both immediate operative instructions about their life in the desert, and other rules about a variety of future life situations. This section is concluded by the two verses mentioned earlier.

2) Chapters 11-25 portray the people’s wanderings through the desert. Here we encounter a series of murmurings and rebellions over a variety of issues. Taken together, these chapters constitute a veritable catalogue of human weaknesses and failings—jealousy, hatred, the desire for power and honor, and raw appetite (for both food and sex)—and how they affect life in community. These are interspersed with a variety of laws, whose connection to the specific contexts is often unclear. This section also contains an interlude showing the people Israel as they appear from without, i.e., through the eyes of the non-Jewish nations as represented by Balaam. Here, too, are the accounts of the battles in the wilderness, with snatches of poetry from such archaic and otherwise unknown sources as “The Book of the Wars of the Lord” (21:14) and “the parable makers” (21:27-30). In these struggles with the Amorites and Bashanites, the new generation born in the desert prove their mettle by facing their enemies before entering the Land.

3) The third section (Chs. 26-36) starts with a second census, parallel to that with which the book opens. Here are described the events of the final year of the wandering, as well as a variety of instructions and commandments in preparation for taking possession of the Land of Canaan. As in the first section, the people are again depicted in a static situation, this time encamped at the steppes of Moab, on the eastern side of the Jordan opposite the Land.

Having established this theme, we may perhaps understand Leviticus 27, the law of “valuations,” as a kind of transitional chapter. The people Israel is not merely an ideal, ”Platonic” construct, but also consists of individuals. The idea of a person making a vow to give a gift to the Sanctuary based upon the statutory value of a given individual—be it himself or a member of his family—indirectly places emphasis on the people, through its basic building block, the individual. The name Numerii or Numbers is a translation of Humash Hapekudim, the Book of the Census or the Mustering. This title, too, emphasizes the people as a whole, gathered together, as a central theme.

The opening chapters, following the census of the people by tribes (and of the Levites by clans), presents a schematic arrangement of the people, encamped in four “flag camps,” each one consisting of three tribes, arranged on the four sides of the Sanctuary. This four-square, mandala-like formation is evocative of the “serried ranks” of an army on parade ground, each unit in its proper place. As this portion is always read the Shabbat before Shavuot, on which the opening chapter of Ezekiel is read as the haftarah, one feels that the four faces of the Merkavah, the Divine Chariot with its four faces of man, lion, ox, and eagle, is mirrored in the Israelite camp in the desert.

What is the symbolism of the square, of fourness? Many parallels come to mind: the Sanctuary itself; the tefillin; the altar; the four points of the compass. The ideal ancient city was conceived as a square, often bisected into four quarters by two main thoroughfares running from one end of the city to another, beginning at gates on each of the four sides of the city (like the walled city of Jerusalem itself). There is something very solid, complete, and whole about the square—but without the flowing, more undefined quality of the circle (viz. the intertwining circle imagery of the Yin-Yang?). It is appropriate to an approach that emphasizes clear divisions and distinction, such as those mentioned earlier in connection with kashrut and other aspects of Jewish law; there is always a clear division between the permitted and the forbidden, pure and impure: issur va-heter, tamei ve-tahor. Four is also a mystical number, symbolizing a certain wholeness of multiplicity: two, plurality, raised by one power. Thus, the picture of the tribes of Israel arranged symmetrically around the holy ark evokes completeness and peace.