במדבר ✦B’midbar
NUMBERS
THE BOOK OF NUMBERS records the Israelites’ forty years’ journey from Sinai to the plains (or steppes) of Moab, their last stop before entering the Promised Land. The book begins with a census that numbers the eligible fighting men among the people who left Egypt—hence the English name “Numbers.” Yet it is the Hebrew name of the book, B’midbar (“in the wilderness [of]”), that aptly captures the challenges the book describes. Wilderness is a place—or time—without orienting landmarks or structure. Numbers charts the journey through a wilderness and attempts to create new structures in this intermediary space for future life in the land.
The book is itself a kind of wilderness, a seemingly chaotic combination of narratives, laws, and lists that can be roughly divided into three parts. Numbers’ narrative begins where Exodus 40 left off. The first part describes orderly preparations and departure from Sinai, where the Israelites had camped for two years (Numbers 1–10). The second part describes descent into chaos, with the Israelites’ (mis)-adventures during the journey. This section is marked by “murmurings” and rebellions, and their dire consequences (Numbers 11–25), including God’s decision to doom the generation of the Exodus to die in the wilderness. The third part describes the preparation of the new generation for life in the Promised Land (Numbers 26–37).
The book’s major themes include: conflicts and decisions over leadership, worship and sanctuary, and land inheritance. Numbers reflects competition over legitimate priesthood between the line of Aaron and other members from the tribe of Levi, to which Moses and Miriam also belong. The book grants the priesthood solely to men of the line of Aaron and only secondary responsibilities for the sanctuary to the rest of the men of Levi, known as Levites. Like Leviticus, Numbers is also concerned with ritual purity and thus it likewise prescribes steps to guard the sanctity of the sanctuary as well as the purity of all who approach it. Critical scholars typically question the book’s historical accuracy as a depiction of life in the wilderness; they conclude that Israel’s memory of this period was shaped over a long period of time, and that the laws and narratives in Numbers come primarily from priestly sources (see Women and Interpretation of the Torah).
Women appear more prominently in Numbers than in Leviticus—both as those to whom laws apply and as active figures in narratives; they play a significant role in nine out of thirty-six chapters.
Although most of the laws in Numbers pertain to women and men alike, some specifically concern women. These include the case of the wife suspected of adultery (Numbers 5:11–31), which describes the ordeal she must undergo in such a situation; the laws about vows (Numbers 30) that delineate who determines what vows a woman must honor; and laws of inheritance for when a man dies without a will and has daughters but no sons (Numbers 27 and 36).
Whereas the case of the suspected wife and that of vows have women as their object of concern, the stories about inheritance present women as subjects: women who take action and initiate a new ruling that enables them as well as future women to inherit their ancestral land if their father has no sons. Here, five sisters named Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah (also known as Zelophehad’s daughters) argue their case before Israel’s leaders and the larger community, thereby effecting change. Perhaps most astonishing, their story also depicts a situation in which a Torah law emerges not from Sinai but from the women themselves (for details, see at Numbers 27 and 36).
Other stories include Miriam’s (and Aaron’s) challenge to Moses in Numbers 12 and the stories about dangerous women, especially foreign women (see the case of the Moabite/Midianite women in Numbers 25 and 33 who are depicted as luring Israel away from God). Ultimately, little can be determined from Numbers about the actual lives of women in ancient Israel. Yet one can conclude from this book that women were perceived as a force to contend with, as well as a source for Torah.
—Tamara Cohn Eskenazi
The Architecture of a Count and the Architecture of Account
THE SACRED SPACE described in parashat B’midbar bridges the end of Exodus and the beginning of Numbers. Exodus concludes with a magisterial description of the Tabernacle and the priests—both resplendent in the colorful handiwork of Israelite women. Once God’s presence fills the Tabernacle and not even Moses can enter, a distinction between Divine and human becomes clear. Leviticus follows, with laws concerning how to negotiate this boundary between Divine and human. Numbers then returns to the topic with which Exodus ends. In Numbers the perspective is widened to include the formation in which Israel camps with the Tabernacle at its center. The Tabernacle complex, with its collapsible boundaries and open spaces, creates a sense of order in the unfamiliar chaos of the wilderness. The Tabernacle also helps orient the Israelites in the vast expanse of that wilderness, since they stay or go based on the ascent and descent of the cloud of God’s Presence. In this sense, God lives amidst the Israelites throughout their journey to the Promised Land.
“Numbers,” the English name of the book, alludes to the social organization of the Israelites and the two censuses that frame the book (Numbers 1 and 26); the Hebrew title, B’midbar (from the first distinctive word, meaning “in the wilderness [of]”), highlights the transitory setting of the narrative. The contrast between these two titles reflects a tension between order and chaos, culture and nature, obedience and rebellion that characterizes the book and drives its plot. This type of tension also suffuses the concept of holiness that operates in this book, in which one recognizes both the creative and the destructive power of God. While contact with God makes Israel holy, encountering God without preparation is potentially lethal.
Although the scrupulous detail of this parashah and other parts of the book may not immediately grip the reader, the underlying idea is that the ordering of the community—and by extension, one’s life—creates the space for encounters with the Divine. The power of this book emerges from the image of the encampment’s concentric rectangles radiating inward to a core of supreme holiness. In this geometry of moving from the periphery to the center, the tribes encamp around the Levites, who encircle the high priestly family, who surround the Tabernacle’s curtained walls that enclose the court that buffers the Holy of Holies. This symmetry—constructed on the ground as well as in prose—is a collective act of ordering chaos that emulates the creation of the world in Genesis 1:1–2:4.
Parashat B’midbar illustrates how hierarchies in a given society are “spatialized,” meaning that its power structures are evident in the physical spaces of the society, such as city plans or religious architecture. In Numbers, for example, the arrangement of the camp favors the sons of Aaron as kohanim (priests), whereas the marching order gives prominence to the sons of Judah. Military language and concepts infuse the description of the camp’s arrangement. It is not surprising, therefore, that women do not appear in this parashah; counting conceals the female presence in the community. (For a somewhat different perspective on women’s apparent absence, see Another View.)
—Rachel Havrelock
Outline—
I. NAMES AND NUMBERS
The Israelites in the Wilderness (1:1–54)
A. The tribes (vv. 1–19)
B. The census (vv. 20–46)
C. The Levites (vv. 47–54)
II. THE GEOMETRY OF THE HOLY (2:1–34)
A. The east (vv. 1–9)
B. The south (vv. 10–16)
C. The center (v. 17)
D. The west (vv. 18–24)
E. The north (vv. 25–31)
F. Conclusion (vv. 32–34)
III. THE LEVITES (3:1–4:20)
A. The election of the priests (3:1–10)
B. The election of the Levites (3:11–22)
C. The organization of the Levites (3:23–39)
D. The price of redemption (3:40–51)
E. The service of the Levites (4:1–20)