"After the plague" in vs. 1 confirms that the judgement is over. The old generation has passed and God is ready to fulfill his promise with the next. This has to be a bittersweet time for Moses. He's already been here before, and he has to be reflecting on what could have been. But at the same time there must be enormous satisfaction in seeing God's patience, forgiveness and hope for the future.
On a different note in 26:15-18 we have the potentially routine listing of the sons of Gad. However, acute observers will notice a couple variations on the names of Gad's sons in comparison to the parallel passage in Genesis 46:16. Look it up if you feel so inclined, but all the names are the same except Zephon of v. 15 is Ziphion in Gen. 46 and Ozni of v. 16 is Ezbon in Gen. 46. Is this an embarrassment for Biblical inerrancy? How does this line up with inspiration of the Holy Spirit? This isn't the first and only instance of "muddled" names in the Bible. With the important understanding that only the original text was inspired and not the scribes hands who made copies thereafter let's get some explanations. But first, consider for a moment you are a Hebrew scribe. You know full well with articulate detail what was penned in Gen 46 and yet here you come to Numbers 26. How easy would it be to collaborate over a few names? Spellings could easily have been agreed upon and divergences smoothed over. But the preservation of these different spelling or names actually speaks highly of textual integrity. If the scribes did not solemnly regard this text as the sacred word of God then we wouldn't even be wondering about these "blemishes" today. When scribal errors crept in, or when alternate names were used that resulted in some confusion, the scholars of later generations did not disturb the evidence they had. To me that says much about the accuracy and devotion to which this book has been preserved. So what could cause this? 1) different spellings of the same name (which is a possibility with extended periods of time and language translation) 2) different names for the same person (This happened in the NT with Peter who was also called Cephas, and it happens today. Some people have called me Allan while most call me David.) 3) A scribe could have even made a mistake in copying the name. Does that last one bother you? It really shouldn't. No intellectually honest person holds to innerency on every copy of every manuscript. There are variations, and the multiple copies of manuscripts solve that problem. When I first studied Biblical innerency there were just over 5,000 known New Testament manuscripts, now there are closer to 6,000. That's alot of words to be cross referenced. It's not hard to find the exact original word in the NT when you have 4,500 manuscripts that spell it one way and another set of 500 manuscripts that spell it the alternative way. The book of Numbers doesn't have the mind boggling textual evidence the NT has, but it's not a scary thing. It's an exciting thing. To see this proves to me that what we hold in our hands is accurately God's Word. Thanks be to Him!
No comments:
Post a Comment