The Journey Remembered

In context

At the Lord’s command Moses wrote down every stage of Israel’s journey (Numbers 33:1–2). It began at Rameses “on the next day after the Passover,” while the Egyptians were burying their firstborn (33:3–4), and ran through the sea, Sinai and Kadesh, more than forty camps in all, to the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho (33:5–49). Aaron died on Mount Hor “in the fortieth year,” aged 123 (33:38–39).

The Lord gave the land’s borders, from the wilderness of Zin in the south to “the entrance of Hamath” in the north, between the great sea (the Mediterranean) and the Jordan (34:1–12), and named a leader from each tribe, Caleb among them, to divide it (34:16–29). The Levites, who would have no tribal land, were to get forty-eight cities with pasture lands (35:1–7). Six would be cities of refuge, three on each side of the Jordan, where someone who killed a person by accident could flee from the avenger of blood, a relative of the dead, until he was judged (35:9–15, 22–25). A murderer was to be put to death, but never on the word of one witness (35:16–21, 30).

The book ends with Zelophehad’s daughters once more (36:1–12), and closes “in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho” (36:13).