Big Idea: God fulfills his promises.

Understanding the Text

Numbers begins with Israel still “in the Desert of Sinai,” where it has received the Ten Commandments (Num. 1:1; cf. Exod. 19:1–2). Numbers continues the story of Exodus and Leviticus. At the end of the book of Exodus, Israel constructs the tabernacle, or “tent of meeting.” The book of Leviticus gives rules for how Israel is to use the tabernacle. Now from that tent at Mount Sinai God gives further instructions.

Centuries earlier God had promised Abraham to make his descendants into a great nation as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand upon the seashore, and to give them the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:1–3, 7; 15:7, 18–20; 17:8; 22:17–18). Subsequently, Israel had grown prolifically in Egypt (Exod. 1:7). It is now April o…