Passover, Priests, and playing trumpets

Numbers 8:1 - 10:36

Interesting tidbits this morning:

(8:7)
To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them; have them shave their whole bodies and wash their clothes, and so purify themselves.

The priests would have stood out from a mile away amongst the hirsute (Your vocab word for the day...means "hairy") Israelites. And if "whole body" is literal then their eyebrows would have been gone too giving them a quite alien look.

We're reminded again here...for probably the tenth time...that God owns the first born of Israel:
(8:17-18)
Every firstborn male in Israel, whether man or animal, is mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set them apart for myself. And I have taken the Levites in place of the firstborn sons in Israel.

This is kinda cool because it means that the blood over the door in the first passover was not just a get out of jail free card. It was symbolic of an ongoing requirement...and ongoing commitment, or debt owed to God. The Levites are the payment for the debt...in effect the priests are the symbolic precursor to Christ's work on the cross.

The stuff on the passover is a cool glimpse too because God opens up the celebration to aliens living amongst them in the same way the gospel promise will later be opened to the gentiles.

It's the stuff in 9:18-23 that always led me to believe the entire nation was constantly on the go.
Setting out when the cloud moved and setting up when it stopped.
(20-23)
Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out.
At this point though they've been hanging out at Sinai for about a year...
Now, I know it's not a popular thought, but if I were one of the guys who had the job of set up and tear down on the tabernacle and the cloud lifeted after two day...
I'd be bummed.
Then again...if it hangs in place for a year...that's a year off.
So you get the good with the bad I guess.