Numbers 33-36; Romans 4

33 begins with a recap, retracing the 40 year journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Jordan River.  This is followed by the command to kick the Canaanites out of their lands.  Sounds like the current Israeli Palestinian conflict, down to turning to God as justification.  If you go back to Genesis 9: 20 and following, to the story of Noah, you will see why Canaan was put under God's judgment, a judgment being carried out now.


34 lays out the borders of the land of the Israelites and the Founding Fathers who will be responsible for setting the borders. 


35 carves out cities and land for the Levites, scattered among the 12 other tribes, and establishing them as places where the innocent can find refuge from false accusations. 


36 fortifies the laws of marriage and inheritance.  Before, women were permitted to inherit if there were no male heirs to carry on the family name (Numbers 27).  Now, those women are commanded to marry within their own tribes in that case so that the tribal lands cannot pass out of the hands of their own tribe.


It seems like all the preparations have been made, on with the invasion!  Except, that there is one more Book of Moses to go, Deuteronomy.


In Romans 4, Paul is continuing to attempt to show why belief in Jesus, providing direct access to God, is the real means of grace, not the tenets of the law of Moses.  He does so by going over Moses' head.  Moses may be the lawgiver of God, but Abraham is the Father of God's people.  Abraham didn't have the law.  He had his belief in God, reckoned to him as righteousness. 


The promise that Abraham's children did not come through the law either, but through his righteousness of faith.  To prove Abraham's dependence on faith, God waited will he and Sarah were really old before giving them their promised heir, proof again of the need to depend on God. 


For us, this righteousness has been set in motion as well, coming to us by Jesus Christ, who lived and died and lived again for each of us.  See how Paul is trying to turn the discussion away from the Jewish faith and its dependence upon the law of Moses, turning it to Jesus as Lord and Savior instead.