If/Then

As I have stated before we are often asked in class what we think are the key passages of a particular text and in thinking about this for Leviticus and Numbers I found that what I thought were the key texts in both of them are very much related to one another almost dramatically so.  In my opinion the key text of Leviticus is in ch. 26 and in Numbers it is ch. 14 and they directly correlate to one another.  Leviticus 26 is God saying to the people a series of if/then sayings and the basic gist of it all is that if the Hebrews do good then they will prosper under God and if they do bad then they will fail under God, it’s all about following God’s commandments and what will happen if you don’t; this is a very broad explanation of this text as there are some very specific if/then instances given, but for time’s sake this broad view will most help us understand it’s correlation to Numbers 14.  So skip ahead in time to Numbers 14 and here we find the desert wondering Hebrews very close to the land that God has promised to them and they decide to send spies in to scope out the place which is bad on their part because they did not trust God that the land would be good enough in the first place and so the spies return and say it’s not that great of a place and then in Ch. 14 the people start to whine about how they wish they were back in slavery in Egypt as it would be better than this, which of course angers God and admittedly so.  It is particularly in 14:40 and 43 where we get this correlation to Leviticus 26.  The people seeing God suddenly change their mind and say that the land is good enough to go into now, but it is too late at that point, v. 43 says, “because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you” and this in a nutshell is what God promised them in Leviticus 26.  There is the if/then correlation.  “If you trust me I will lead you into this land, if you don’t woe unto you”.  For me we really see Leviticus 26 perfectly fulfilled in Numbers 14; it is simply one more time that God actually did what he said he would do and sadly the Jews were either not paying attention or did not believe him.  All of that to say, there is something to taking God at face value.  Generally if he makes a if/then statement you can bank on that if you do one thing then a particular something will happen as a result.  Now whether it is positive or negative is up to us.

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle