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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Numbers 12:3

If you are not familiar with the book of Numbers, it was written by Moses, at least the majority of it. It was written about Israel's journey to Canaan.

The 12th chapter starts with this:

Miriam and Aaron Oppose Moses
1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 "Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't he also spoken through us?" And the LORD heard this.

3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)


I just love verse 3. My footnote states that this verse was "perhaps a later addition to the text, alerting the reader to the great unfairness of the charge of arrogance against Moses."

In fact the verse is mentioned in the introduction of Numbers. It reads, "It is not necessary, however, to claim that Numbers came from Moses' hand complete and in final form. Portions of the book were probably added by scribes or editors from later periods of Israel's history. For example, the protestation of the humility of Moses (12:3) would hardly be convincing if it came from his own mouth. But it seems reasonable to assume that Moses wrote the essential content of the book."

This just makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I think Moses did write it himself! How funny would that be?

God isn't so serious that He wouldn't include some humor in His book! He created bugs whose bottoms light up! He's got a sense of humor or He wouldn't have created us with one. In fact there are plenty of funny things in the Bible.

And I don't think it made Moses any less humble if he recognized that others were not.

I don't claim to have any actual answer to this, I just really think it would be funny if it was in fact Moses who wrote, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth."

(Of course, regardless of the author, this verse is the inspired Word of God.)

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