One Year Bible Blog: March 16th readings

One Year Bible Blog: March 16th readings

This is a musical day!

Numbers 24:17 is the basis for a wonderful piece of music by Felix Mendelsohn, "Behold a Star from Jacob Rising."  I tried (unsucessfully, so far) to find an MP3 of it to upload.

Luke 2:29-32 is the basis of the Nunc Dimitis, done by too many composers to name.

The comments that I've seen relating to the Numbers quote seem to regard it as pointing to Jesus, but I don't see it that way. It seems much more likely to be talking about David than Jesus. The description here is more of a warrior than a redeemer.

Numbers 25

This one is very confusing to me. The men have had sexual relations with the women of Moab. The way I read the passage, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that they "yoked themselves" to the Baal of Peor. As a result, God instructed Moses to kill all the chiefs of the people. But Moses didn't do that. Instead, he tells the judges to kill anyone who got involved with the Baal. And they didn't even do that. Instead, Phinehas kills one "mixed" couple which stops a plague that wasn't mentioned before this.

So Moses didn't obey God. The judges didn't obey Moses. And one renegade priest murders two people with no instruction from anyone. And as a result of all this, God calls off a plague. I just don't understand.