Numbers 33

CHAPTER 33

Stages in Israel’s Journey (33:1–56)

1–49 These verses list the stopping places where Israel camped during their forty-year journey from Egypt to the plains of Moab. Many of the sites listed here are not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture and their location is unknown. And some sites where the Israelites did stop are not included in this list.¹⁰¹ We need to see this long list of stopping places as a record of God’s faithfulness to His unbelieving and rebellious people. Now they had reached a place just across the Jordan River from their destination—Canaan. They had tasted victory over the Midianites; God was with them; the promised land was soon to be theirs.

50–54 Here God repeats some crucial instructions.¹⁰² First, the Israelites must drive out all the inhabitants of Canaan (verse 52). Second, they must destroy all the Canaanite images and idols and they must demolish all their high places¹⁰³ (verse 52). Third, they must take possession of the land of Canaan and distribute it to the tribes as their inheritance; the larger the tribe, the greater the area of land it would receive (verses 53–54). Distributing the land by lot ensured that it would be the Lord who made the decisions, because the Lord controls the outcome of the lot (Proverbs 16:33).

55–56 These instructions were followed by a severe warning: if the Israelites failed to drive the Canaanites out of the land, the Israelites would become so corrupted by them that God would end up having to drive the Israelites out instead!¹⁰⁴ And sadly, this very thing eventually came to pass. The same applies to us today: if we do not drive sin out, sin will soon drive us out—out of God’s will, out of God’s blessing.

There remained one final, major set of instructions to be given to the Israelites on the plains of Moab: the entire book of Deuteronomy. It was in these final days of Moses’ life that he wrote the book of Deuteronomy and presented it to the people.