Reflections on the Book of Numbers

Perusing this biblical book through a theopolitical prism, it may be seen that another unifying theme that courses through the diverse contents of this biblical work is that of molding the diverse tribes of the children of Israel into a functioning confederacy presided over by an increasingly strong central authority. For forty years, Moses wrestled with the problem of retaining the tribal structure of the children of Israel as a vehicle for the transmission of traditional teachings and values from the generation of the exodus to their descendants and, at the same time, attempting to restructure intertribal relationships within the confederacy by the nationalization and centralization of the evolving religion, focused on the Tabernacle and its rites that served as the adhesive that bound them to each other. What the narrative also illustrates is the challenge of exercising the effective central leadership essential to containing the centripetal social forces that tended to impede the transition from a tribal confederacy to a unified nation, a challenge that purportedly caused an eleven-day trip from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land to take thirty-eight years to complete.

Dr. Martin Sicker is a writer and lecturer on the Middle East and Jewish history and religion. His is the author of forty-five previous books, including Reading Genesis Politically, The Trials of Abraham, The Ordeals of Isaac and Jacob, Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought, The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet, The Convocation at Sinai, The Theopolitical Discourses of Moses, Pondering the Imponderable, and The Book of Daniel.