Numbers 25-27, Acts 27, 28

We don't read about war with Moab following Balaam and Balak.  Instead, in the first 2 verses of 25, the Israelites are having sex with Moab's women, sacrificing to their gods, eating and bowing down to their gods.  Let me jump back across to Acts, specifically to the Council of Jerusalem and the pieces of the law of Moses that remained in force for Gentile Christians.  One was they abstain from eating what had been offered to idols.  The second is fornication-sex.  The third is staying away from consuming blood or anything strangled.


Those first two, food to idols and sex, seem to connect back to Numbers 25, that the food and the sex are part of the worship of the gods of Moab.  Sex was not part of how the LORD was worshipped, but I believe it is a recurring theme throughout the bible that it is part of the worship practices of other gods.  That will be an ongoing issue.


The chapter goes on when Phineas, grandson of Aaron, executes a couple, he Israelite, she Moabite (or Midianite) and averts another plague sent upon the Israelites for their disobedience. 


26 is a new census of the people.  It will become the basis for how the Promised Land is divided up among the tribes, proportional to their populations.  A census of the Levites follows.  27 opens with a very progressive piece, allowing inheritance to travel through daughters to preserve the family line.  The kinship inheritance laws in vss. 5-11 will play a role in the book of Ruth later. 


The last piece to be decided before the people go into the Promised Land is who will replace Moses, whose sin has forbidden him entry.  That honor goes to Joshua.  The Aramaic/Greek form of Joshua is...wait for it...Jesus.


The end of the book of Acts records Paul's journey to Rome.  It is fraught with dangers.  He gets shipwrecked on Malta.  The detail of the ocean journey is very telling to the accuracy, in my opinion, of the travelogue of the book of Acts.  In 28, Paul first performs a miracle of shaking off a snake that was assumed to be punishment to the evil that he did.  He goes on to perform a miraculous healing before they are rescued.


In the last half of 28, Paul is in Rome.  He makes inroads with the Jewish leadership and lives there for 2 years at his own expense.  We don't know how he made out with the Emperor.